The Federal Aviation Administration has designated Palantir Technologies Inc., Thales SA and Air Space Intelligence Inc. as the firms competing to build a new artificial intelligence-driven tool intended to aid air traffic management.
Officials say the project is a component of a broader program to modernize the country's aging air traffic control infrastructure. The FAA has characterized the overhaul as a means to improve safety and reduce technology outages that affect operations.
Congress has provided $12.5 billion toward the modernization effort to date. The FAA has indicated additional resources will be necessary, estimating that roughly $20 billion more will be required to complete the work.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy mentioned the AI initiative at a conference in Washington on Friday, identifying the three companies now engaged with the agency.
"We have three companies that are working right now with us on developing software to look at how flights are managed," Duffy said.
In his remarks, Duffy described potential operational uses for the new technology. He said AI could help identify times with large concentrations of scheduled departures or arrivals, enabling the FAA to take steps intended to ease congestion. He also noted the tool could provide alerts to air traffic controllers when aircraft are projected to come too close to one another.
The agency's selection of the three vendors kicks off a competitive development stage for the AI capability. Beyond the selection and the stated aims, the agency's public comments focus on the expected benefits and the scale of required funding rather than implementation timelines or technical specifications.
Context and next steps
The announcement marks a targeted effort within the larger modernization program to apply advanced software to flight management tasks. The FAA has secured significant congressional funding but continues to report a sizeable financing gap. How the competition among the three firms will proceed and the schedule for deployment were not detailed in the remarks cited by the FAA.